Sixth World: Crossroads

Zoey’s finally up and walking around. In a strange twist of fate Twitch is his doc at the clinic. The Zen addict doctor has been known to do some runs in the area, but he left Fable in a pinch with the cops closing in last time they ran together. On the other hand, the pandilla was looking for someone who could get them in touch with the black market in organs and cloning. After Checkmate and Fable got some light-hearted revenge on the good doc they brought him up to speed on the need-to-knows of the Horizon job.

With Fable as a Portugese Aztechnology Employee, Gualberto Simões and Twitch to back up the paperwork with a doctors signature little Maria “Mercurial” Martinez was on to incubation. With the Sylvan package on top for fun.

Downside, Nex spotted the crew at the clinic. Twitch stepped up to buy some time while everyone got out. Not something Fable would have expected from the addict, and his estimation of the doc rose quite a bit in that moment. Not that the feeling lasted for long while Fable set off to run into Nex. She dropped by the bakery as expected, with her thugs and a bloody mark. The conversation went alright, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would be waking up at the bottom of the canal, save for the aforementioned mark. Nex intended to dig into Leticia Nunes, the cover Checkmate used at the clinic. But that would be fine. Those papers were legit. Or as good as.

Meanwhile, Zoetrope had put together a job. And as requested, Fable arrived at the damn with 3 hits of deepweed. The meet took place in astral space, apparently Ms. Sanchez was expecting shamans.

Two meetings later and the details were worked out. They’d be working for infiniTech, a subsidiary of Aztechnology to secure a safe zone in the jungle near Maldonoda for a short period of time while Sanchez, Loralee Hardester’s sister, and her associates examined a manatomb from the fourth world. The last team infiniTech sent in put 3 in the hospital, but they all made it out. They lost their helicopter though.

Fable got the ping from the Johnson working for Horizon in the late afternoon. The meet was set for a private server on the matrix, and he shot the details to Checkmate and Taka, a tank of a troll who’d seen some action in the wars who Fable had done a run or two with before. Johnson wanted muscle, and nobody provides it like Taka.

Johnson’s avatar was a dead ringer for his image in meatspace. An elf male with blonde hair, a goatee and ponytail. He has tan skin and his teeth are too white. His Matrix avatar isn’t even a clever version of him; it’s just a picture of him. The Señor spent some time trying to get chummy with the padilla, talking about how he used to work on some two-bit soap opera about shadowrunners. But the brass tacks was that Horizon was agitated that they hadn’t been able to snag the Maria “Mercurial” Martinez away from Aztechnology. The two had been waging a less than covert PR war for some time, but with the hot war down in Bogota, Panama City’s front in the war had gone cold. And nobody at Horizon had any interest in it heating up. The pay 10,000¥ for each runner involved in obtaining a sample of Mercurial’s DNA. The catch, it wasn’t clear she was entirely human. Johnson denied the rumors Fable had heard about her being part hologram, but admitted they weren’t entirely sure what she was.

Mercurial travelled with no fewer than 8 bodyguards at any given time, and if the crew injured the target while dispatching security… well, there’s a reason this job was going to deniable assets. Johnson was keen to explain what Horizon would do with the DNA once it was obtained, but that mierda didn’t change the job.

The guards carried a reputation as warriors, but Taka’s military background gave the crew an edge. Most of the jaguar warriors were engaged in Aztlan’s war with Amazonia, and any left behind to work private security jobs had probably aged out of military service. Likely to carry all the hottest new gear, but to have lost a step to time.

Mercurial stayed in the Aztechnology Business Complex. The ABC is a large complex; six buildings with one central ‘large’ building. A short wall, about 3 meters tall, surrounds the ABC. Guards are light around the exterior of the wall, but the gigantic main building has a heavy security presence. While Checkmate staked out the entrance Taka and Fable went in to do some recon. A little scuffle between Taka and security gave Fable the opportunity to enter the main building undetected and take a quick elevator ride down to Security Subfloor A. And as luck would have it, right on the camera feed from the parking garage was Mercurial with 6 guards. Removing the flesh from her skin to reveal an unnatural merging of machine and man and replacing it with another flesh mask. As the Mercurial convoy pulled out of the compound Checkmate trailed them to a mall.

Taka and Fable jacked a car and made there way to the mall, where Checkmate had lifted a used dermapad from Mercurial’s handbag. Fable moved to acquire the dermapad with a quick brushpast of Checkmate, but her encounter with Mercurial had caught the attention of her security team. Taka made a scene taking out one guard and Fable drew the other’s attention long enough for Checkmate to disappear. With 2 guards out of the picture Fable faded into the mall traffic before catching a ride to meet up with the crew back at the Ziggurat.

They hadn’t cleared their payday yet. But things had been almost too easy.

And Fable still had Nex on the line for a few nuyen over those MK.IX-Beta schematics.

The Phillip Wright Story

There were two Knight Errant officers at Aztechnology “SeaLine” monorail, car number 6 when Fable scanned the place. Not utterly surprising. He’d jammed up some runners with that ploy once or twice himself. A little story about half-off drinks at Sequoia’s place and they didn’t bother making the trip to the new meet place Checkmate set. Not that the empty flash drive was going to get them a discount. But the added business wouldn’t piss Sequoia off.

Johnson was law enforcement. A friend of Checkmate’s or some such. The job was to infiltrate a low-rent corp and show them that if they didn’t pony up for Knight Errant’s protección that bad things would happen to them. Not that Johnson knew much about the job. On the 25th floor of the CentAm Chrysler building, in Executive Suite #3 was the MK.IX-Beta. The job was to get the MK.IX-Beta and move it to Johnson’s waiting van in the parking lot across the street. No word on what the MK.IX-Beta was, but the gig came with a briefcase from the policíaFable left drinking at the Ziggurat – the contents of which would bypass security for floors up to 24 – patrol routes, programs to neutralize corp security, passwords and so on – but only only good for the next few days.

A day’s work turned up a handful of useful items of interest. The MK.IX-Beta ran 300kg, but with a height listed as “2.5 meters exactly” in manifests. It was also identified as ‘troll-sized’, which wasn’t promising. No mention of magical defenses, so the crew was 90% sure it was non-magical. But that 10% was the cost of running without an occult expert. Additionally, a good-sized chain of corporate holdings turned up that Chrysler is owned by Fiat is owned by, is owned by, is owned by and so on until you reach Saeder-Krupp.

A little bit of work and Fable had put together the necessary paperwork for Phillip Wright, DVP-SSCHD (Deputy VP of Security for Small Corporate Holdings Division) to hold up when pushing the building security forces around. Fable pressed a few keys on his console and waited for his rented GMC Phantom NewUber to drive him to Chrysler, Checkmate and Zoetrope arranged their own way through the cargo entrance. Fable strolled right in the front door. Inside 3 minutes the entire building security system was answering to DVP Wright, and Chief of Security Abe Adams didn’t like it.

While Checkmate and Zoetrope worked their way through the building, Fable stalled security. That’s when the call came. A second Johnson offering more money, and one who knew too much about the run.

Fable led the security team to the 25th floor, they swept it, and Adams turned up a bootprint matching Lonestar. The security team moved to sweep Executive Suite #3 at the same time that Checkmate broke the code to access the Executive Level.

That’s when things went sideways. Several guards detained Checkmate, Zoetrope and Abe Adams on Wright’s orders. He figured he could get Checkmate and Zoetrope out of detention to ‘be moved to a black site’ and Adams was well past suspecting that Wright was a hoax. But what really got things messed up was the guards who cut MK.IX-Beta loose. The half-troll/half-machine went into a killing frenzy. Three guards died almost immediately. The MK.IX-Beta destroyed the elevators while searching for Fable. Meanwhile Fable collected the data from the computers that had been controlling the MK.IX-Beta. The result being the MK.IX-Beta was between Fable and the exit. The machine gun of an arm the MK.IX-Beta caught Fable in the chest, piercing his arcane wards, but he managed to reach the staircase and call all security forces to address the warmachine rampaging through the executive level. A quick sprint to the freight elevator on the 23rd floor got Fable out from between Security forces and the MK.IX-Beta, but the ensuing bloodbath left an additional 9 dead.

At ground level Fable came upon ‘Checkmate wrestling with a security guard over a gun and Zoetrope collapsed in a pool of her own blood. A swift kick to the guard’s head decided the issue and Fable and ’Checkmate dragged Zoetrope to the waiting NewUber. Next stop, The Daybreak Clinic.

Fianchetto// Ka-boom! One of my contacts was posting all over the matrix about the ‘chemical fire.’ She’s 100% sure that she saw a few guys go out the windows – and not jump, get thrown from the 25th floor of the CentAm Chrysler Building.

Fiancheto// What? Listen, I’ve seen the vid – a guy goes through the window and SPLAT onto the pavement. No way he jumped, not with that velocity.

Agent// Dear me. Chrysler’s owned by S-K, right?

GIGAWATT// dont think so, and if they are there must be six levels of shell company.

Fianchetto// If you asked me, and I know you didn’t, this has Aztechnology written all over it. All the casualties were on the top floor, no injuries on the ground floor… just like the Azzies to play nice until they’re inside your living room.

KUNGKONG// I thought that at first, but I had one of my buds in Panama go astral to check it out. It was like a dead zone. If it WAS the Azzies, we’d see tortured souls. Everywhere. That said, the high bodycount (what was it, 12 guys?) definitely fits their MO.

The City was beautiful once, if you believe the trids. Green trees, white sands, glimmering ‘scrappers. Weather ain’t great though. The rainy season is tough; 7 months a year it rains more often than not. It was raining that day. The man’s commlink was giving the telltale yellow blink of a message. A few months ago, during the dry season the man had landed at the port of Panama City from Chicago and slipped past a corporate cop at customs. The message was from Pin. Fable had screwed Pin over a couple months ago on a deal; not that Pin was aware. So far, the only person who knew, an Ork chica with a thing for explosives hadn’t said anything. Maybe she didn’t even realize what she knew. Regardless, Pin had a job for Fable, something about a concert and the ever elusive Mr. Johnson. A quick ping to Checkmate and Zoetrope and the pandilla was off to meet with Pin. Fable was a little surprised Checkmate was willing to make a move so soon after the business with Renraku, but everyone needs a cred, and his were running low too. He knew that position. Not that he’d set her up in a very nice part of town. Not that any of them could afford the nice part of town. But she’d helped him out with the customs thing a ways back. Chicago seemed so long ago now. You know, the great thing about the families is you do your time quiet, and when you walk you can take your out. And that’s what Fable did.

Well, that’s what he let Nex think. This sort of thing with Mr. Johnson, well, it was exactly the sort of thing that would violate his Non-compete clause with the Mafia Capo. But what Nex didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

The three ’runners met with Pin and picked up the sparse info he had. Hours later they passed through security at the hastily build Amphitheater downtown and into their box. A couple words with Namika outside the door meant the Ork was the first to speak with Mr. Johnson, and it seemed to rattle him a bit. But a bit of information on Namika was worth it. And it always amused Fable to see the suits uncomfortable.

The deal was this. Someone at The Horizon Group was looking for a team to smear someone. The first run was a test, the crew messed up a local corporate-kiddie watering hole and they got to run in the big race. At a guess, Horizon wasn’t much happy with Maria "Mercurial” Moreno being signed with Aztechnology, and the reporter Hiroshi Saito was fishing on a similar line.

The Lost Wages wasn’t much of a bar. Run by Billy Boiles it catered to those too young to be smart enough to avoid it, and those too old to find a new bar. The plan was to push a dual message, drugs and cops, to clear the place out, but when that cabrón put his hand on Fable’s face things changed. A quick beating and the kid lay bleeding on the doorstep when the Bombas rolled up. The bar was already smoking up from the grenades in the bathroom, and playing the cops ran the drek-licking gang out of there right quick.

A few more grenades, and a couple anti-corporate slogans painted on the windows and the Lost Wages was rightfully vandalized.

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.